From a ‘Downing Street Party’ to a ‘drowning’ Conservative Party. An electoral expert has predicted that the Conservatives would lose “hundreds” of seats in today’s general election due to Boris Johnson and his team’s recent controversies.
Sir John Curtice, writing for The Independent, predicted that the Conservatives would suffer significant losses in the first major poll since the Partygate incident made headlines.
Meanwhile, the leader of one grassroots Tory group said that resentment with the No 10 parties, compounded by concerns over growing living expenses, resulted in the party’s members remaining at home on Thursday.
“People most affected by lockdown – those who missed weddings and funerals – still consider it a scandalous disgrace, and now they are feeling the impact of higher taxes and energy costs as well,” said John Strafford, head of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy.
“The renewed ‘partygate’ focus has made an indigent situation for the “Conservatives” even worse by persuading even more Conservative adherents not to turn out at the local elections,” verbally expressed pollster Martin Baxter.
“The results could now be lamentable for Boris Johnson, especially if the Conservatives lose many hundreds of council seats and key flagship councils like Wandsworth or Westminster,” he perpetuated.
It follows claims from Angela Rayner that Tory election candidates are ashamed to be linked with the prime minister, by running as “local Conservatives” and pleading with voters not to “punish” them for the Partygate scandal.
“It speaks volumes that Boris Johnson’s own Conservative candidates are ashamed to be associated with him and trying to pull the wool over voters’ eyes,” Labour’s deputy leader said.
On Thursday, a huge portion of the British and Irish people will vote to determine the near future of local politics in the United Kingdom, with concerns such as the Northern Ireland protocol, Partygate, and the Channel Migrant Crisis likely to influence who voters support.
A slew of other crises — including one Tory MP being convicted of child sex offences, another leaping to his MP’s defence and calling the conviction a “miscarriage of equity,” and another discovered to have watched porn in parliament — are unlikely to help Boris Johnson, who is also said to have a weather ocular perceiver on potential coup attempts arising from within his own party.